The Cone Phenomenon
by ROBLOXCATSTORM
Summary: Conan has become something beyond our control. The people closest to him investigate.
1. Haibara

Another day, another mystery to solve. It had been pretty nice that day. Sure, no steps were taken towards shutting down the Black Organization, and no discoveries had been made over the antidote to APTX 4869, but nothing bad had happened either.

Conan had spent a day kite flying with the Detective Boys and Agasa. He had taken care of the murder attempt smoothly without the adults raising any eyebrows. No one actually got killed, either. It was another step in the right direction towards justice. He also got to find out what Haibara had been listening to. She liked Okino Yoko (but not as much as Ojisan did. His obsession was almost pathetic.) It was nice to see her enjoying life. He was going to continue to protect her and stop the Organization so no one would have to fear them again. He would do whatever it took to take them down.

* * *

Haibara was worried about Shinichi.

Not that he was in danger or anything. He was the danger.

Today she had watched him slip between being an innocent, bright first grader and a skilled detective as easily as flipping a switch. He would smile at the cops and then, when no one was looking, glare at the culprit. His words would egg on the police detectives to figure out what was going on, cleverly making their trains of thought take specific routes that would end up at the conclusion he was aiming for. His deductive reasoning was disguised as the simple-mindedness of a child, and his mentioning of detailed facts from advanced crime-related topics was excused as stemming from children's natural compulsion to tell things they learned to impress adults. Nobody bothered to question it. This person had gradually developed into a persona somewhere between Conan and Shinichi, and it was unsettling. He was in complete control of everybody around him to the point that he could pull these stunts repeatedly without any hitches. And that was the main issue.

Haibara remembered the first night that she had met the guy. Her first impression was jarringly different than the Conan of recent. He acted nothing like a little kid, would react conspicuously to the mere mention of people wearing black, and sometimes would monologue to himself out loud without noticing. She had taught him to be less blatant by reminding him of the general danger he faced. Maybe he had taken this concept and ran with it much farther than he was supposed to.

The Conan she now faced was a dangerous threat for a completely different reason. He was blatant because he knew no one was going to stop him. If faced with an urgent problem, he would put on his trademark smirk and pull off an ingenious plan without a hitch. It happened every time, even against the Organization, against Gin, and that was unnatural. A strategist should not have a 100% victory streak. There should always be a spanner in the works, a fly on a typewriter, any sort of mistake to make them trip up. Conan had not fallen. Haibara grew more and more anxious, waiting for something, anything to screw up, because it was supposed to. It never did. Conan always won.

He pulled risky maneuvers frequently, always dancing on the edge of being discovered. Her first genuine adventure with him was a huge testament to that. He rummaged around in Gin's car like it was nothing. When she was on the roof with Gin and Vodka, about to be mercilessly killed, he stood behind a door and used the bowtie to distract them. He pranced around the storage room, out of reach of the Organization, leading Pisco directly into a trap as if his every move was that readable. Pisco was high-ranking, clever, and shouldn't have been outsmarted by an act put on by Kudou Shinichi. If things had been different, if the odds were ever so slightly out of his favor, he would have been killed then. In fact, he would have been killed that first night by the apotoxin doing its proper job. And through all of these dangerous maneuvers, he was confident and always thinking far ahead. People who watched him would have thought he had a death wish.

Maybe she should have felt reassured by this. After all, if things continued as smoothly, then she should have no worries about the Organization finding her or her friends. They would continue to be safe, on the side of justice, completely out of the line of fire, etc. All the loose ends would be tied and buried. But it felt so wrong.

And he did so much wrong, and he knew it well. He avoided answering questions. He only told half the story. He didn't tell her that the person next door wasn't an active Organization operative, leaving her in turmoil for weeks. He emotionally manipulated her so many times that it was becoming routine. In fact, he emotionally manipulated almost everyone he was around. Kudou did this without visible guilt or remorse, insisting it was for the justice he was planning to use on the Organization. His sense of justice was no longer in the right.

People should have noticed his double-sidedness, but they turned a blind eye. By now, someone should have caught on, called him out, discussed the matter privately. Any psychologist who spent five minutes in proximity to Conan would have demanded him to come to therapy. Was it really true that people did not pay that much attention to his antics? And what about Ran, who had cornered him multiple times? Was she noticing how cocky he had become?

How Haibara had gotten down this thought trail had began with the events of that day. It had been a standard routine for a murder case, but this time there was an additional hitch. Kudou had crossed the line between acceptably manipulative and personally offensive. For some reason, he had felt inclined to find out what music she was listening to. Surely it was a petty matter to be concerned about on the surface, but Haibara had seen Conan sporting a heinous expression as he was about to bug her phone for the answer instead of directly asking. He no longer had any sense of privacy or boundaries. It was concerning enough for her to warrant a discussion with the Professor.

Over a couple glasses of tea, they began their discussion.

"I think there's a problem with Kudou-kun."

Agasa scratched the back of his head anxiously. "What do you mean by that?"

"Have you been watching him during cases?"

"Well, I suppose I have, but I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary." Agasa looked confused, but at the same time, he seemed to faintly know what she was getting on to. If anything, this statement meant he just wanted her to elaborate on what was so wrong about Kudou-kun's rampant pride complex.

"He's becoming a monster."

Agasa paused, looking sort of surprised. "Well, if you put it like that, sometimes Shinichi's arrogance does get the best of him. That's how he is."

She didn't push the matter on him.

Agasa was one of the reasons why Shinichi was acting like this. Most of Agasa's reactions to Shinichi's plans were simply unconditional agreement. He would be stunned, repeatedly in new ways, by Shinichi's perfect planning, and then stumble along behind him willing to do his every bidding. Agasa never disagreed, and that was a huge part of the problem.

If anything was to be done, she would need to cut off the stems before dealing with the flower. His enablers had to be stopped.


	2. Takagi

A brief author's note to my readers - the most followers for a fic I have gotten so far: I am ever so slightly changing how this fic will work. I have not yet decided what events will occur other than these deep personal monologues by various characters. I have changed the description and removed Haibara as the main character for now, though. Thank you for reading!

* * *

There was an elephant in the room.

Conan was becoming integral to the police force. Many cases revolved around his coordination and hints. People called Conan to help with cases, or locate officers, or ask Shinichi for help. He was like an elementary school level police detective. Maybe the most talented one he had ever seen. It was undoubtable that something was wrong with this, but no one in the division wanted to ask why.

Takagi himself had been blessed as being the only person who had the chance to witness Conan's inner persona once and only once, and it was the most unsettling thing that he had ever seen. He had begun to believe that this was actually a curse, because after the bombings, Conan snapped back into his normal naive brilliance. Takagi never saw it again. He almost started believing that it never happened.

He thought he had gained a solid trust level with the kid after solving cases together, but after that exchange, he felt like he was lightyears away from ever knowing anything about Conan for real.

He had asked who Conan really was, and Conan admitted, at the very least, that he was not actually Conan. He was something else. That was scary. Conan would take his secret to the grave with him if he could, for the sake of whoever he was aiming to protect. That was even scarier. And it was true, and his suspicions had been confirmed. Conan wasn't real at all. But what was he, then?

Curiosity had its hands around Takagi's neck. He had told Satou the story, and she hadn't discouraged him. She was just as skeptical and bewildered as him. But what can you do when your target of investigation is a six year old?

There had been multiple times where lives had been in danger, and only Conan had been the one to step up and find a solution before time ran out. If it hadn't been for Conan's eerie presence, many people would be dead. And that make Takagi afraid of what would happen if he rooted out the mystery behind him. A significant amount of the population of Beika-chou owed their lives to Conan. Did he really want to break the constant streak of correctly solved cases as a consequence of making Conan show his true colors? Would more people die if Conan was unveiled? Was he going to ruin it for everybody? No, Satou assured him. He was right to find out the truth. If they were sitting on something darker by leaving Conan alone, it would be better in the end to uncover it and end the charades than to let it fester and get worse. They could work together on this. Thus they set out to gather together all the information about Conan that they knew.

Satou recalled that Conan had been recently temporarily adopted. He never mentioned his life beforehand, never missed his birth parents, and never seemed to be bothered by it in the first place. Conan was also six years old, and at that point in any child's life, they should still have a huge emotional attachment to their parents and home. There was no trace of this at all, ever.

Takagi was the resident expert on children. And Takagi knew that Conan did not act like the rest. He had no enthusiasm that any normal six year old would possess. There were no childlike emotions or tantrums or mimicking adults. He lacked everything that made a kid a kid, and that was only the tip of the iceberg, for what replaced this mentality was something that was not even normal by adult standards.

It was like Sherlock Holmes, but worse.

Holmes limited his knowledge only to forensics, chemistry, and logic.

Conan knew everything.

Takagi had watched him during the last case with the can telephone. He remembered saying himself that it was regular children's logic that had brought on Conan's revelation that helped solve the case. Takagi had said that half seriously, half frightened, because he had been fishing for a logical justification of how Conan had solved the case without any hesitation or mistakes. He had found none. No one should have come up with a can telephone, it was completely absurd. What kind of mind let Conan easily figure things out? And the glances he had thrown over his shoulder, and his erratic behavior, and everything about him...

After the case, he had called Satou and filled her in on the events, and what Conan had done, and the terrible feeling that Takagi always felt when he witnessed Conan in action. He felt powerless. Satou had reassured him that what they were doing was right. What they were going after was going to stop this problem, and things would be normal. And if things didn't get back to normal, they would at least have answers.

He didn't get much sleep that night. Instead, Conan's words remained in the back of his head. He was a grown man. A six year old was tormenting his life. Takagi had sat up and thrown off the covers and ran to his desk. He began writing. He needed to organize his thoughts before he could rest easy at all.

There had been an unusually high amount of pairing up going on in the police department after Conan's popularity with the cops increased. Conan was doing something else in addition to case solving. He was matchmaking. It could be traced to an indirect result of all the cases being solved and various truths being revealed by Conan. Without Conan, he and Satou would not only be separate, but long dead. This made Takagi afraid and angry at the same time. An external force had its hand in Takagi's life, and he would have none of it.

Not only did Conan know everything, he knew something very important and dangerous. Takagi had betted that that much was true. Conan had panicked when Takagi had told him information about the bank robbery case. Conan had panicked again when he mentioned the Haido City Hospital incident. Considering that Conan was probably completely rational and not a normal child, Takagi lent some credibility to these events. Something was going on behind the scenes that only Conan knew about. That wasn't right. If it was dangerous enough to make that kid shake in his boots, it wasn't something that he should be doing on his own. Conan was two-faced to the point that he was running another life behind the backs of everyone he knew.

There was something else. Shinichi could only be reached through Conan. Conan was Shinichi's one and only hotline and was the only one who actively communicated with him. No one else received frequent texts or calls from him. How was Shinichi involved with Conan? Was Shinichi a confidant in whatever case Conan was trying to handle?

Shinichi was a wholly different story. He disappeared one day, claiming he was on a case after people began to get concerned. He had only shown up a couple times since then, seemingly out of nowhere and then back into the abyss. Months passed. People began the rumor that he was dead. Takagi really couldn't come to a conclusion on why Shinichi was acting like this, unless he was being forced to stay undercover. But he still managed to have easy connections with people, especially Conan. If he was needed, he was there. It was obvious: Shinichi was close by, just hiding in the shadows. And when he did make himself known, there was always something wrong with him: he would become gradually weaker over the course of the case, and then would rush back to wherever he came. Takagi had witnessed this thrice.

Conan really reacted to that name. He would almost panic at the mere mention of Shinichi. He had tried constantly to cover up Shinichi's tracks and clear his name if anything arose. Conan was six years old, and in no way should be looking after his older relative's business.

There had been that one time where they had been seen together. He would have expected Conan to be excited to see his teacher and idol, but Conan was different that day. He was sick, silent, and seemed to be completely unfazed by Shinichi's presence. Takagi couldn't remember a single time that Conan had spoken up during the case, and couldn't find another time where he had ever acted like that.

There had to be something he could find that would make sense, but Takagi was at a loss. This was like the point in a case, he thought, where Conan would step in and say something quaint that would act as a spark to make him put it together.

Takagi looked down at his paper. He had no idea what he would write. He had to sleep on this one.


	3. Ran

Ran was worried about Conan.

Not that he was in danger or anything. But he could be. He just never said anything about it. And neither did Shinichi.

That was the whole matter of it. Whatever he was doing was completely unknown thanks to his closed-mouth policy, but Ran had a few ideas.

Naturally her best theory was that he was Conan. What else could it have been? Where did Conan go when Shinichi arrived? The answer was that he was Shinichi, and that when Shinichi was around, Conan didn't exist. Shinichi disappears, Conan returns. Anything else was smoke and mirrors. Ran had had this figured out for months. She just couldn't beat Shinichi at his own game.

Conan would only confess that he was Shinichi if Ran had physical proof, darning evidence, completely justified, one hundred percent real. She had plenty of evidence already. It was just the kind that someone obstinate like Shinichi wouldn't accept, composed of similarities, flashbacks, and uncanny feelings. She could have written an A-grade multi-page report on how linked the two were, and Conan would disqualify it straight away for not having any references.

Why he acted like this and beat around the bush was beyond her. Any reason why it should have been a secret was pointless now. She already practically knew. She knew he knew, and he knew she knew. They should have reached a consensus already and just given up the acts. But it was impossible to, as Shinichi would not budge. It hurt her that he didn't trust her enough to let her in on what was going on. For some reason, despite the recurring mistakes and the frequent cornerings, he would never let Ran connect him and his older persona using inductive logic.

She always would walk away from one of those arguments angry and disappointed. He was good old Shinichi, all right, never telling his closest friends what was wrong. He liked to pretend that he was undefeatable. What was he going to do with himself if everything came crashing down? Ran didn't like to imagine it, but it wasn't a good sight to behold. Maybe, she wondered, maybe his Conan thing was something like that. Perhaps he totally earned it as punishment from bad karma. What a sight, the famous Kudou Shinichi in the papers and on TV, now known as a first grader completely under the radar. It was hilarious.

He was probably too embarrassed to come to her for help, but at this point, almost a year into his new persona, it was becoming tiresome. He seemed to have a lot of it handled himself on the outside, though. Ran had watched many cases where Conan would lead his fellow adults into discovering the truth behind a mystery. He had manipulation down to a science.

But recently, when she went places with him, his behavior had been getting stranger. She recalled Conan breaking out in a cold sweat for no apparent reason before the apartment bathroom case with Sera. He wouldn't tell her what had bothered him so much, which was normal for Shinichi, but it was plain to see that he had been genuinely afraid. Something was making him so paranoid that the sound of a camera shutter sent him off the edge. This was not healthy behavior.

Seemingly normal words or people would completely freak him out. Amuro Tooru's presence made him a lot more reserved, which was notably bizarre. Sometimes Sera would say things and he would act strangely in response. Something huge was going on behind the scenes, behind the small conversations, and Shinichi wouldn't dare let Ran in on what was going on, which pissed her off. Shinichi needed help and he wasn't letting himself get any, leaving him helpless in his convoluted and ridiculous web of secrecy.

Sometimes she would notice moments when Conan thought nobody was looking, where his hands would be balled into fists, and his face would be the picture of anger, some weird seething rage against something invisible to everybody else. Sometimes he would stare at her for a long time and sigh. What could possibly be holding Shinichi back from seeking help from the one he obviously wanted to tell the most? It wasn't like anything different would happen to her if something that she already knew was confirmed. Was he really that stupid?

She was going to have to get things straight with him. She needed a good old private conversation. But he was so evasive, though, that there never was a chance. Ran was going to have to pull some strings again and turn the situation into where it was unavoidable to talk to her, like last time, except somewhere that couldn't get interrupted by the likes of Conan's cohorts.

And it had to happen soon, before Shinichi got himself into real trouble.


End file.
